Western Force - 10 years on

[TOCC]

Interesting read on Sam Talakai the other day, when Stiles was at the Force he tried to recruit Talakai to head West, but Talakai decided that he wasn't up to Super Rugby standard yet and he was worried that If he wasn't playing Super Rugby then he would be playing in the Perth club rugby competition where his development might suffer. So he denied the contract as to remain in the Sydney University system where he could develop further, then the following year Stiles again offered him a contract but this time to head to QLD.

So two things on this, has the NRC helped to overcome some of those fears for potential Force recruits, and secondly is it truly beneficial to the Force to have their squad players playing in the Perth club competition? You could argue it lifts the standard of the comp, but at what expense to the players development?

In the NRL, the Storm partner with Norths in the QRL comp and send their squad players to play in this competition during the NRL season rather then have them play in the Melbourne comp, should the Force have a similar agreement with a Shute Shield or QPR team?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[fatprop]

I think it was Eddie Jones who complained about the lack of rugby young prospects actually play even before worrying about the quality

To me, Sam did the right thing, play plenty of rugby, in best standard comp you can get into has to be a better plan than simply training and playing low subbies standard for a couple of years

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

edit: and I appreciate the argument about the need to develop local comps, but if I was player whose development was "at harm" yeah nah, let someone else be the nice guy